Before It's Too Late
by Mecha Rush
Summary: When Hachimenroppi is at his limit, will Tsukishima say those three words in time to save him?/Oneshot with Tsukishima and Hachimenroppi. I suck at summaries. Remember to R&R!


**AN:** My shortest work so far. This is what I decided to write instead of working on my series.

Don't blame me! I was (still am) stuck!

Out of all the ShizuoxIzaya pairings (including the originals), Tsuki&Roppi are probably my favorite and least favorite pairing to come up with plots for. They're so... HEART-BREAKINGLY SAD. I love it and hate it at the same time.

I honestly felt so bad for Tsukishima while writing this...

R&R ~

******Don't scroll a lot at once—this is an emotional piece if anything, and doing that will sort of spoil it. Read it slowly and scroll a little at a time ****(literally paragraph by paragraph, or line by line)**, especially at the breaks.

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Tsukishima ran, panting heavily as the rain poured down.

「_Please, please._」

Although his body was screaming for a break, the blonde man pushed on. He ran towards the single place where he never forgot the route to, never got lost on the way—unlike every other place he tried to go to, causing him to lose himself.

He was running on the path that lead him to where his heart was.

「_Don't let it be too late._」

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As soon as Tsukishima slammed open the door, his heart lurched in fear.

Standing in the rain was a man, the hood of his black coat down and revealing his black hair, damp and wet from the weather. He stood with his back towards Tsukishima, standing on the railings of a building of perilous height. The rain was beginning to wash away the red that had trailed down the man's wrists, his fingers, his pants, and the railings, painting the floor the same color as the trims on his jacket.

Although he had lost his glasses on the way and the world was a blurry view, Tsukishima could never mistake this man for anyone else. The blonde man's heart twisted painfully as he saw the blood, his lungs panting for air.

"Roppi... san..."

The said man did not respond. For a moment, only the rain and heavy breathing could be heard.

"Izaya... told you, didn't he?"

Crimson eyes bore into the back of the figure, refusing to miss a single scene.

"Roppi-san... Don't... Don't do this—"

"Trust him to ruin the surprise, huh."

The bleeding man laughed, as if he had just told the funniest joke in the world. The laughter soon died out, and Hachimenroppi—"Roppi-san"—watched as the gray skies brought the rain which washed the world, pouring down over the city.

Hachimenroppi kept his gaze fixed on the scene in front of him, knowing that the boy behind him would begin to walk towards him soon. The boy that would always remain a boy to him, even if he had passed the legal age, and towered over himself. His purity, his innocence, would forever keep that blonde boy from growing up, preventing him from becoming an adult, oblivious to certain emotions Hachimenroppi felt for him, like the feeling of—

"... Do you think love is justified, kid?" the raven-haired man asked in a soft voice, crushing his inner thoughts harshly.

Tsukishima stopped walking in surprise, his once-calmed heart sped up again, wondering if his feelings had been caught. But his thoughts was stopped as the man in front of him continued to speak.

"It's not. The truth about love is that it's nothing more than the cruelest way to torture yourself."

_It hurts when you think about them._

_It hurts when you're not with them._

_It hurts when you're even **right beside** them._

"... Because heart ache is the one pain that humanity has no cure for."

Tsukishima couldn't say anything for a minute, personally having gone through everything Hachimenroppi was talking about. But after a minute, he found his voice, and answered honestly from his own experience with the unknowing man in front of him.

"But... If you're together with the person you love, isn't the pain... worth it?"

The raven-haired man chuckled; just the answer he had expected.

"... Humanity's pathetic; it knows its trapped in this torture. So it begins to make up pretty stories to tell itself; like how parents lie to their children. People lie to themselves that they're happy—that whatever the cost, it's worth it. That the person they're with is worth it. But when the day is over, when the day comes to an end—"

_They know they're not fooling anyone_.

Hachimenroppi did not have to speak the words out loud for both of them to know what he was thinking. The unsaid sentence hung in the air, brooding over the two men. Tsukshima panicked inside, confused and unsure about everything at the moment. He wanted to just leave his mind blank and go hold the man in front of him in his arms, holding him in a warm embrace as the cold rain tried to separate them. But Hachimenroppi was not done.

"... And when you shove that on someone else, when you make someone else fall for you..."

Tsukishima remembered how little over a day ago, Hachimenroppi had began to weep silently when he was discovered cutting again.

"... When you pass on that pain, trap them in that same torture..."

And he remembered how he had carefully wiped those tears away, saying that everything would be alright, over and over again.

"... Without knowing that you've done so..."

And how he knew, as he carefully held the broken man, that it would not be long before his emotions won over his reasons and he would speak the words—

"... **Can you blame me for hating you?**"

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_There's a reason why people say there's a thin line between love and hate._

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The blonde man's heart stopped, many emotions going wild inside as his companion's words pierced him with a harsher pain than what he could handle. A lump formed in his throat as his thoughts ran through him in many clusters, the only clear thought telling him that he had to stop this man in front of him from doing what he was planning to do. He remembered what his informant had said, when he had begged for the right words to say in order to stop this coming tragedy.

"Tsukishima."

「_Ah ~ Well, Tsuki-chan._」

Hachimenroppi slowly turned around, keeping his balance as he moved on the slippery railing. The two pairs of crimson eyes met, one wide in panic, the other softened with acceptance. As Tsukishima saw the outlines with his blurry view, the raven-haired man put his arms out, as if preparing his single audience member for a grand show.

「_He won't see your tears through the rain, will he?_」

"Can you blame me..."

The raven leaned back, his eyes staring into ones that had always reflected him with a caring gaze.

「_So I suggest that you tell him what you've always wanted to say_—」

"... For wanting this?"

Tsukishima cried out, running towards the man and reaching his arms out, fingertips brushing against each other as a mixture of tears and rain altered the blonde man's view.

「—_Before it's too late._」

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_I wonder w__hat kind of expression Roppi-san was wearing._

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The sun shined in the sky, its brilliant light touching everything with a warm breath. A slight breeze came about here and there, moving through the earth and skimming every piece of it from time to time.

The breeze brushed through the grass, causing the green blades to shudder against a grave. Standing in front of it was a lone man dressed in black, his eyes covered by strands of blonde hair, his face hidden behind a long scarf regardless of the warm weather. In his hand was a single, unfolded piece of paper; a letter, containing the words that he had failed to convey with his voice in time.

With an empty gaze, Tsukishima crouched down and placed the letter on the grave. His handwriting could be seen, his words open to anyone who would bother to take a look. Only a single sentence had been written.

Feeling a painful twist in his heart, Tsukishima abruptly stood up, turning around and walking away from the one phrase he had always wanted to say—the three words on the letter now stained by his tears, dying out before they could reach the man buried underneath the cold earth.

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End file.
